MSI K8N Neo4 nForce4 Ultra Socket 939

[kenton]

Tell Bob he's just fine. He's got a warranty anyways, rofl.

These chips have a shutdown temperature anyhow, most modern processors since the Pentium III do.

I also doubt the chip reached an alarming temp either. As far as thermal protection the A64/Opteron is just as advanced as the Core2 and people are running those without fans (wouldn't advise it unless you're underclocking the Opteron) but the point is -- it can be done.

 

[GeezerMan]

OK, thanks everyone, I passed it on to him, and he put the gun down, everything is OK now. He did ask a question that I never thought of, and that is what kind of load does a dual core run at when loading windows anyway? Interesting, I don't know of a way of measuring that one...The other question he had was why was I talking to the wife instead of supervising?...ooopppsss...

 

[GuildBoss]

Can I mix single-sided and double-sided DDR? I have a 512 (single-sided) and 1 GB (double-sided). The chart in the downloaded manual seems to suggest it is not possible. thx

 

[kenton]

Yes, it's possible, just not for dual channel mode. Single channel will work just fine, since you don't have two matching sticks (be it 2x256 or 2x512) just load 'er up.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
The other question he had was why was I talking to the wife instead of supervising?...ooopppsss...

Tell him you're a card carrying "dirty old man" and you have the right to do that.

 

[GeezerMan]

OK, I got another question. I never seem to run out of them. I see people talking all the time about having a dual core, and playing an intensive game, running a virus scan, burning a DVD all at the same time with no lag. I'm thinking, how? I noticed today that while just encoding a video, the dual core Opteron 165, at 2600MHz, would often hit 100% usage on both cores. Throw a game in the mix, and a virus scan, and you gonna see some lag. Heck, just while encoding, it did slow web browsing a bit. Are they assigning like 1 core to video production, and 1 core to a game?

 

[kenton]

You could do that, but the likely answer the application isn't multithreaded or in other words is written to only support a single core.

Check out the original Quake 4, then Quake 4 1.3patch with dual core enabled. You'll see a difference in task manager's reporting of CPU usage.

 

[GeezerMan]

Right. Video encoding is for certain one app that takes great advantage of 2 cores. I'm encoding a video right now, and both cores are pegged at 100% for 20 minutes while I compress and encode 2.5 hours of video. I doubt if I could play a game right now and not notice any difference.

 

[KF]

>I see people talking all the time about having a dual core, and playing an intensive game,
> running a virus scan, burning a DVD all at the same time with no lag. I'm thinking, how?

As you mention, there are plenty of tasks that can and will use 100% of the CPU time available. If they don't, it isn't an ongoing task; it is something like picking up key-presses, or refilling a buffer periodically. And if the OS is not assigning near 100% of the CPU to some ongoing task if it needs it, it is wasting the CPU time, and the task will take longer to complete.

I think what they mean by lag is that you don't have to wait on anything to respond to you. Gamers don't want to fire a weapon and have its effect delayed while the CPU gets around to updating the display. They don't want to turn and have a split second delay until the display shows it.

How can you run multiple tasks and not have any lag on any of them? You probably can't. But if the OS gets back to you within the time it takes to press a key, you wouldn't notice. But for running a complex game, I think the programmers just have the game get all the CPU time, and only if any time is left over, other tasks get the time.

One of the problems with task switching is that there is some overhead in saving and restoring the full state of the program. There is a huge amount of data in mid-process at any point in a complex game. If one CPU is always devoted to the game, you will have eliminated that type of save-restore overhead.

Virus scans and burning DVDs do not need 100% attention 100% of the time, so if there is lag to those, it is easy to accomodate. If the scan of one file is delayed, who cares? For DVDs, the time it takes to empty the write buffer to the DVD blank is a long time at the rate CPUs operate, so it is not often a problem to get back in plenty of time to avoid a retry or misburn.

 

[kenton]

Oh boy, I figured out my temperature problem. I KNEW IT WASN'T HSF INSTALL RELATED.

So my girlfriend is giving me a very hot running 7950GT 512MB for Christmas and I'm all excited, except the damn thing is going to produce a lot of heat (not as much as the X1900 series, though) and even though I'm going to be cooling it with a VF-900Cu I wanted to figure out why my CPU temp was always so damn high under load.

Seems I didn't have enough intake, and since I'm a smoker/pet owner (*gasp*) my lone 120mm intake fan is obviously filtered so it wasn't pushing enough CFM, despite it being a 80cfm MassCool. Anyways:

Previous cooling setup:
1x120mm intake (filtered)
1x120mm power supply
1x120mm exhaust
1x92mm exhaust (side blowhole)

There was a "vent" at the bottom of my case which in my opinion was going to let in smoke/dust/cat fir and while it wasn't quite big enough for a full 120mm fan, it's about 90mm(h) x 120mm (w) so I stuck another 120mm fan there for intake and I of course filtered it. I clean my cases twice a month because A) it takes maybe 20 minutes a case, B) I like long life, C) it keeps temps down

So I boot into Windows and load up SpeedFan, wow the case temp is at 29C (previous "low average" was 32C) and the CPU was idling about 2C cooler. I got excited and started to dual prime. Holy CRAP, the CPU barely gets to 50C. Hasn't touched 50C or crossed it yet. As we can see, the second core is running hotter.

I love this forum and I love helping you guys so here's some pictures of my setup. The case is a Rosewill something or other (go to newegg.com and search cases by Rosewill only, you'll find it. It's cheap and I really like it. Vibro dampers for the hard drives, PCI slot lockers (removed b/c they're a pain with large cards), removable HDD/FDD bays and dual factory 120mm sold me for $35 or whatever it was.

Edit: Oops, it just touched 50C for a second. Oh noes! All in all, this has dropped my CPU temp at load by at least 5C, closer to 7-8C. Literally. Case temp has also dropped around the same amount. You can compare to a previous screen shot.

Pictures:

http://www.kenton.org/computer/case.jpg - A shot of the internals
http://www.kenton.org/computer/case2.jpg - Another shot of the internals
http://www.kenton.org/computer/case3.jpg - Shot of the commonly most wired area
http://www.kenton.org/computer/sidepanel.jpg - My 92mm exhaust + "120"mm intake (filtered). The lowest two screws are fully screwed in, shipping tape holds the top two easily
http://www.kenton.org/computer/case4.jpg - My DC Opty 2.7GHz + my 2.6GHz Venice 939 on a KN1 Lite (soon to be Linux, waiting on that $30AR 7300GS from Buy.com)
http://www.kenton.org/computer/case5.jpg - Everyone should have one of these (Thermaltake iBox, it doesn't really match the case because it's shiny but it's so useful)

http://www.kenton.org/computer/newtemp.jpg - My new temps under about 15 minutes of load. If you're curious why one Prime is 10 minutes longer -- I foolishly executed both Primes on Core1, since Core1 runs hotter it didn't skew my results too much. It's at 49C right now, 9 minutes in.

http://www.kenton.org/2700.JPG - My previous temps with the same clocks.

 

[kenton]

Err...

The 2700 shot doesn't show CPU temp. Here's one 200MHz lower with higher temps (rofl): http://www.kenton.org/msiopty2500.JPG

All that was done was adding that "120"mm fan at the bottom vent location as intake.

 

[Netopia]

I know that this might go against the thinking of some people, but I'd turn your side blowhole around and make it a filtered intake.

As long as you have more air being exhausted than being drawn in, you're going to have some amount of negative air pressure. This normally results in dust (and animal hair?) being pulled into whatever cracks and crevices the air can find to enter the case. Floppies, CD/DVD Players and other devices like that can get dust and such drawn in.

I don't know why manufacturers don't design cases so that they have positive internal pressure and filters on all intakes. At work, I've got dozens and dozens of commercial machines and they all collect nasty, filthy dust around all the places mentioned earlier. The computers I've built and have made sure have a positive pressure, OTOH, stay fairly immaculate except for the filters, which I clean out periodically.

Joe

 

[Lurker1]

Yes, netopia is right - the side "blow hole" should be an intake. Why? Because I'm going to guess that it's ducted, which means it will blow air directly onto your CPU HSF, which will most likely also "pull" air and blow it over the heatsink.

My fans are unfiltered. (Dust isn't a big deal) and I'm adding a second low-speed 120mm intake. So when all is said and done, I'll have several intakes, and the main exhaust will be via the PSU. The reason for 2 120mm intakes is that I can then run them at 25dBa each, and get about 40% more CFM than a single 120 running at 28dBa (max is 30dBa, but doesn't buy me much in the CFM dept). The side intake (not blow-hole ) will be a slow running 80mm fan to help the CPU fan out.

Oh, I should also mention that there's a pure vent right above the GPU in this Ultra case, so having extra intakes means more exhaust around the GPU. That certainly won't hurt matters.

I've also thought about have the rear 120 be an exhaust, with the front and side being intakes for truly vectored flow inside the case. I'll probably test it out and see what happens to the temps and fan speeds (since the CPU is temp controlled, logging its performance in speedfan is a pretty reliable way to determine your "best" air flow configuration)

 

[GeezerMan]

Thanks for the info on my previous question guys.

I wonder about the temps speedfan indicates. My neighbor is using the same Opteron 165, same HSF, same motherboard, similar video card, etc. His temps are a good 5 degrees cooler than mine. I guess it could be IHS related.

I'm trying out my Antec P150 case again. With 2 90mm fans upfront, 120mm in back. I'm amazed how the front fans bring the hard drive temps down about 14 degrees.

I really love my Opty 165 setup. So smooth.......Look for an engagement announcement soon....

 

[kenton]

Yeah, I bought a fake iPod (I knew it was a clone) off eBay that was "2GB" and it was really 512MB (PayPal won't help so I'm doing a CC chargeback) and anyways I was compressing some music for my girlfriend (this is her clone iPod) down to 96Kbps (poor I know, but it's not like she's an audiophile, she just wants PINK MP3 player) and I noticed that I didn't reach full 100% on both cores until I opened three instances to encode. It was really really sweet.

I tried the 92mm fan as an intake with no 120mm at the bottom. It didn't do any good actually, it didn't hurt but it didn't lower anything.

The sound of this extra 120mm is about to drive me nuts, as well. I rewired the 92mm to 7v but it didn't do any good, I may rewire my 120mm next.

 

[Lurker1]

I really love my Opty 165 setup. So smooth.......Look for an engagement announcement soon....

I'll be sure to send some sand spray! (Your Opty will love the Si!)

As for temps, forced air flow, aka convection, can seriously affect temps. Blowing room temp air across the drives will remove significant amounts of heat (just think of yourself outside on a 32 degree day with sun and no breeze, and then w/ 20mph breeze). So designing for coolness is more than merely CFM, it's about flow as well, and the temp of that flow.

Lastly, my 3800+ X2 is also running smooth as glass at the moment at a 20% OC, going for 40% soon, with the rest of the system OC'd at about 15-20% (memory, etc) I'm truly amazed at what you can yank out of these CPUs at stock voltages. Makes me wonder what's coming down the line w/ the 4X4 and quads next year, since the 4x4 w/ the FX-70s equals a the fastest QX6xx chips from Intel.

Regarding your video encoding multi-tasking question: Multi-threaded Video encoders will utilize as many cores as there are threads. That's why you're seeing 100% useage on both cores. This is a good thing! Now, burning a CD/DVD is single threaded (in most apps) and most games are single threaded, so you can do both on a dual core CPU without incurring too many issues, as long as you don't suffer Disk I/O bottlenecks or have your HD and DVD/CD burner on the same IDE channel (SATA finally ended that problem) The AMD 4X4 platform will move this to a new level, as your video encoding can run on one CPU (with how ever many cores it has) and your other stuff on the other, or you ca utilize both CPUs and all the cores for video encoding if your program is setup for it. Note that with the quads this will mean 8 cores, and you will most likely have to have overcome disk I/O bottlenecks via RAID or intelligently setting up your read and write files on seperate disks or both. I've not yet run into this issue, but hope to soon

I'm holding off on any further upgrades until probably summer 07.

 

[Lurker1]

Originally posted by: kenton
...I noticed that I didn't reach full 100% on both cores until I opened three instances to encode. It was really really sweet.

I tried the 92mm fan as an intake with no 120mm at the bottom. It didn't do any good actually, it didn't hurt but it didn't lower anything.

Sound encoders are mostly single-threaded from what I've seen.

Regarding the 92mm intake fan - it sounds like you have a dead spot in your case's airflow that the bottom 120mm fixes. It would be interesting to see the effects of the bottom 120mm at a slower speed alone and in combination with the 92mm. Noise is an issue which I'm trying to reduce on mine.

 

[nyker96]

Hey guys, I bought 2 of these about a month ago thinking to build 2x systems, but ended up just did one for my uncle. Was gonna build other for myself using 165 but changed my mind gonna just jump to C2D next year. So I have the extra hanging around. If anyone want to build a system with this board, PM me, I'll just sell that extra off for $30+ship. Let me know if interested. The one I made worked pretty well, you do need to flash the BIOS to v1D to get the extra OC options tho.

 

[cardiac]

Got yerself a PM there, nyker96....

Bob

 

[GeezerMan]

Well, Neighbor Bob's PC is going pretty good with this MSI board and the Opteron 165. He is at a tad above 2600MHz. His temps are lower than mine by about 5C. Not bad. He has a problem that I would like some ideas on. Windows will freeze up on him. At first it was during the opening of IE7. I hear some are having probs with IE7. But it also locked up with PowerDVD, and PC Wizard 2006. The whole desktop just locks up, mouse too. It does not happen every time though. Have to do a reset to get out of it. I'm thinking driver conflict, maybe ram settings? Could the CPU voltage be too low?


Thanks

EDIT: well, it might be ethernet related. we attempted to do the MSI live update, and it got to the web, started to download, and then the whole PC just froze. I see some talk on the web about ethernet probs with the nforce4 and the active armor, but we did not install the active armor. Strange thing is we both use the same board, drivers, etc, and I have no problems, yet......

 

[cardiac]

Random lockups are the thing that I hate diagnosing the most......Try disabling the sound, ethernet, modem, and USB drivers (And any other oddball drivers), and see what happens. Then add them back one at a time.....

Got another MSI board coming from nyker96 to build for my 2 boys. Hope this one is as smooth as the first.....Using an AMD 3200 with this one...

Good luck geezer......

Bob

 

[Zap]

Darn you, cardiac! :| I wanted that board.


J/K

 

[GuildBoss]

Originally posted by: kenton
Yes, it's possible, just not for dual channel mode. Single channel will work just fine, since you don't have two matching sticks (be it 2x256 or 2x512) just load 'er up.

Well, I'm getting random application errors when using both sticks no matter where I put them. System runs fine with either of the sticks alone, however.

 

[GeezerMan]

Well, we could not get anywhere figuring out the conflicts on Neighbor Bob's PC, so I decided to bring over an Acronis image of Neighbor Bob's PC and load it onto my PC., since we have the same motherboard and CPU. Only took a few minutes anyway. Now for the strange part, so far, his image works fine on my PC. If it continues to work OK for a few hours, then something has to be wrong woth some of his hardware. We did flash the bios already, and tried different ram too. He may have a bad motherboard component, or hard drive problems.

 

[cardiac]

Originally posted by: Zap
Darn you, cardiac! :| I wanted that board.


J/K

Ya snooze, ya looze......

Sorry

Bob